Meus Caros Amigos

Ah well now I'm having fun! Reviewing AMICI MIEI is like diving into a tub of champagne after just getting drunk, there are so many things that come back to your memory and make you smile that it would be enough to list them. But I won't do this, I will instead say something more significant for us Italians, this film (and its trilogy) is and will always be the best comedy produced in Italy. Point! He expressed in the most true and realistic way a cross-section of the best way of experiencing friendship in the Sixties/Seventies, a true, sincere, inter-class friendship, I would dare say almost a brotherhood. There are truly irresistible, contagious hints of irony, which we would all have liked or tried to make fun of like Count Mascetti played by a splendid Ugo Tognazzi, or to pose as the professor. Sassaroli (Adolfo Celi), or why not fall in love like the architect Melandri (Gastone Moschin), manage a bar like Perozzi (Duillio Del Prete and Renzo Montagnani) and go on "escapes" like Perozzi (Philippe Noiret). How beautiful, what a pleasure, how many memories... a cult film, authentic inspiration for entire generations! Masterpiece by Mario Monicelli.

Look. If you're not Italian, or at least you don't speak Italian and you see a translated version, probably you won't get it. I don't know how the various pranks like the "supercazzola" have been translated and how they sound like. Here they sound like pure genius. I know a lot of people, scattered through the nation, that just WORSHIP this film, probably thanks to the fact that this movie is quite an underdog, neither a mainstream film, nor an artistically praised "commedia all'italiana". But who cares about artistical merits. The characters and the situations are so lively like is rarely seen. The film is an humble tale about life, women, friendship and death, with five men using their wits to avoid the tragedies of their lives. It's a lesson about taking life with a light heart, even if things are terribly grim. I think that the final laugh means it's all about that.

PS Excuse me for the bad English. I'm Italian and i'm supposed to do a lot of errors!

Oh God,I am so lucky.I live in a small town in Greece and I have never heard of this film before.And it must be almost impossible to find it in DVD.

I accidentally read about this film on the TV program.It was the movie of the day and it is rated with the highest grade.So,I decided to stay awake(because the film started around midnight-like many other great films in Greek TV!)and watch that really great film.It was one of the best decisions I have made recently.

The film is about a company of middle-aged men.But they aren't typical 50-year-old men.These men don't care about right behavior,about what others say,about what the rules of society say.They decide to enjoy their lives,so they start making jokes to people and have real fun.They are like children that don't want to get older.

First of all,it's one of the best comedies I have ever seen.The scene with Toniatsi and the others slapping the passengers of the train,who have their heads out of the window is one of the funniest scenes ever made.But the greatest part of the movie is,in my opinion,when they pretend the gangsters to make fun of an old man.

But,apart from the funny scenes,this films has some things to teach us.It shows,first of all,what real friendship is.Secondly,it teaches us to enjoy our lives.These men have also problems in their lives,like other people.But they decided not to worry so much about them,and as result,they really LIVE THEIR LIVES.And I was really jealous of them,because that's the most important thing,but we often forget that.

To sum up,this film is hilarious,moving,sentimental,with really lovable characters and it has some important things to teach.What else do you want from a film?

MY FRIENDS is originally a project for Italian writer/director Pietro Germi, whose untimely death in 1974 at the age of 60, leaves the film to be taken over by another maestro of the Commedia all'Italiana, Mario Monicelli. The film was a whopping box-office success, which subsequently would spawn two sequels, Monicelli would be back in the saddle with ALL MY FRIENDS PART 2 (1982) and ALL MY FRIENDS PART 3 (1985) would be outsourced to Nanni Loy.

A double-bill of these two Monicelli's vehicles, set in Florence, MY FRIENDS has a quartet core of middle-aged men: Count Lello Mascetti (Tognhzzi), a down-and-out ex-nobleman who has squandered all his fortunes, can only slum it in a tiny basement with his suicide-driven wife Alice (Vukotic) and their daughter, which doesn't dissuade him from being smitten with an underage student Titti (Dionisio), who has a predilection for girls over men; the second one is Giorgio Perozzi (Noiret), a journalist separated from his wife Laura (Goodwin) and is irreconcilably at adds with his prim adult son; then there is Rambaldo Melandri (Moschin), a bachelor architect, determined to find his perfect half and lastly is Guido Necchi (Del Prete), married with Carmen (Tamantini) and they own a bar which serves as their haunt.

Life is anything but optimistic, Pietro Germi and co.'s script conscientiously draws the milieu from reality, in both Mascetti and Perozzi's cases, one might easily finds company in distress and self- abandonment, but, not these four, feeding on their staunch friendship, the fold never relinquish their idiosyncratic practical jokes and escapades, mostly ingenious and borderline harmless, counting their classic passengers-slapping when a train departs and Mascetti's trademark "supercazzola" gibberish. And following Melandri's tireless pursuit of a married woman, Donatella (Karlatos), an embodiment of Madonna with psychological hiccups, a fifth member, Professor Sassaroli (Celi) is introduced, a renowned surgeon and the husband of Donatella, who is perversely liberal about the affair and is more than happy to not stand in their way if they are really made for each other, and of course, they are not, but Sassaroli is here to stay.

One of their most detailed skits involves a penny-pinching pensioner Righi (Blier), who is hustled into believing that the quartet belongs to a mafia mob, with Sassaroli as their boss, dangled by the profitable income, Righi buckles down to join in their "dangerous" line-of-work, and their adventure culminates in a self-organized gangster melee, which leaves Righi in chagrin, utterly side-splitting thanks to Blier's bang-up po-faced bearing. The coda of MY FRIENDS deflects to a more sombre streak - a heart attack does Peruzzi in, all happens in a sudden but no grim sorrow is allowed to percolate, his friends keep their comic esprit de corps alive, even death cannot take it away.

ALL MY FRIENDS PART 2 comes 7 years later, the story continues after Peruzzi's abrupt departure, the original cast returns (significantly older) except Del Prete, who is replaced by a more prosaic- looking Renzo Montagnani as Necchi, only the latter is not endowed with Del Prete's dashing and devil-may-care panache.

The part 2 doesn't structurally pigeonhole itself as a strict sequel, owing to the huge pull of Noiret's Perozzi, there are abundant flashbacks charting Perozzi and Mascetti's past stories, which take place earlier than those in the first one, while without ghettoizing Sassaroli out of the picture (the original four becomes a quintet), it conspicuously creates some anachronism for viewers with fresh memory of the first installment. Gallantly interpolating the flood of Arno in 1966, the story manages to expound on Perozzi's marriage disintegration and take a taunting spin on Melandri's another devoted courtship to a voluptuous but God-fearing young girl Noemi (Giordano).

Contriving an act of pulling Pisa tower back in perpendicular, gate-crushing a singing contest with a risqué song a cappella in the presence of cardinals, a chirpy caper involving a Spanish contortionist (Da Silva), their shticks never disappoint, meanwhile Mascetti has his own familial problem when his slow-witted daughter is impregnated by an unknown rapist and decides to become an unwed mother. Finally, a guest performance from Paolo Stoppa as Savino, a Shylock to whom Mascetti is indebted, he would fall prey into the quartet's pranks (includes a scatological one which sublimely tips the scale), and undergo several "invisible" operations to square off Mascetti's debts. Similarly, another heart attack befalls on one of the main characters near the finish, but this time, to a lesser extent, Tognazzi, Moschin, Noiret and Celi are all sterling comedians, but it is Tognazzi who stands out in his more sympathetic nobleman-in-distress mould.

Inscribing their marks as quintessential pieces of Commedia all'Italiana, both films are salacious, amoral and pathologically funny, although the second one only logically contends to take a leaf from its predecessor's book. But essentially they are not connived as far-fetched escapist fares with a shamelessly patronizing smugness, their gypsyish antics are genuinely devised to imbue a positive vibe out of their quotidian misfortunes, despite that they can never hit the right note of the gender politics, yet, what do you expect from a buddy movie?

Hello from Barcelona again This movie is very good. Actors play an excellent role. Ugo Tognazzi and Philippe Noiret are the best ones. Italian humor is present all the movie. I can't explain with the correct words how good is this movie. I have it in Catalan, my language. The 2nd part is very good but I think the best is the 1st one. Guido Necchi (played by Duilio del Prete) didn't act in the 2nd part. We have Renzo Montagnani who plays a good job but not better than Duilio del Prete. You can see Rambaldo Melandri (Gastone Moschin) in The godfather part 2. He is the old man dressed in white suit who Robert DeNiro shoot with a gun while there is the crowd in the street. Adolfo Celi does an excellent role too, very funny. Also in the 2n part. There is a 3rd part with Ugo Tognazzi, Renzo Montagnani, Adolfo Celi and Gastone Moschin. Philippe Noiret wasn't here (only in 1st and 2nd part). This 3rd part is not so good but it is interesting anyway. We can see Bernard Blier again, who did the role of Niccolo Righi in the first part, the old man who in the first moment believes sugar is drug... You can find the three parts in Internet, in Emule (look for Amici miei). The sound is Italian and very interesting. The 1st part longs around 20 minutes more than the first edition of the film, and shows very funny scenes with the 5 men and Niccolo Righi. There is a pack with the trilogy in DVD in Italy. And I think it should be a 4th disc with deleted scenes, interviews and more. But I think there were some problems and now it is hard to find it. Finally you can enjoy watching Ugo Tognazzi and Philippe Noiret together in the Marco Ferreri film La grande bouffe. I hope there is someday a DVD with English subtitles for all of you. Enjoy! Joan Barcelona